📌 The Rising Cost Pressures on Service Providers
Providers delivering in-home and community-based services—whether in disability support, home care, or broader community services—are facing increasing financial and operational pressures.
Key industry trends putting strain on providers include:
• Higher workforce costs: Rising wages, compliance costs, and workforce shortages across aged care (Support at Home reforms) and disability services (NDIS pricing constraints).
• Manual administration burden: Staff spend excessive time on scheduling coordination, shift changes, and responding to inbound client enquiries.
• Lost revenue from unfilled shifts: Late cancellations and inefficient shift tracking result in unutilised service hours.
• Increased demand for transparency: Clients, families, and regulators expect better communication, self-service options, and more control over their care.
For small to mid-sized providers, these challenges create a cycle of high costs, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities for growth.
📌 The Cost of Inefficiency for a Typical Provider
A provider delivering in-home support to 450+ clients, with 50–100 frontline staff and a 7-person admin team, could be losing:
• $250K+ per year in lost billable hours due to untracked or unfilled shifts.
• $50K–$100K in excessive admin costs, with staff spending hours manually following up on changes and tracking issues.
• Growth limitations, with new client onboarding delayed due to administrative inefficiencies.
🚨 Estimated Financial Impact: $600K+ in inefficiencies and lost revenue annually.
📌 The Solution – Centralising Communication & Automating Workflows
By centralising communication and automating workflows, providers can create structured, automated processes that support schedulers, care teams, and clients while reducing administrative burden.
🔹 Multi-Channel Communication Across SMS, Email, Phone & App
• 99% of home care communication is still phone-based, leading to high costs and inefficiencies.
• Shift from fragmented calls, texts, and emails to a multi-channel system that improves responsiveness and reduces inbound enquiries:
• SMS for instant updates and two-way client communication.
• Email for detailed notifications, service confirmations, and detailed responses.
• Phone (IVR & self service) to handle routine enquiries like next service and reduce inbound calls.
• Apps to give clients more control over their service experience.
• Automate reminders & notifications for appointments, service changes, and shift confirmations, decreasing missed shifts.
🔹 Automated Workflow Management to Support Scheduling Teams & Service Coordination
• Schedulers lose up to $130K per year in efficiency due to constant workflow interruptions.
• Implement ticket-based workflows that automatically log and route shift-related updates, client requests, and service changes to the right teams.
• Auto-prioritise & track tasks, ensuring no service request, cancellation, or update is missed.
• Improve response times by ensuring tasks are actioned in real-time, reducing manual follow-ups.
🔹 Empowering Clients & Staff Through Self-Service
• 60% of inbound communication in home care is service-related, with clients calling about schedules and appointments.
• A branded client portal or app allows clients to:
• Request and manage service changes without calling the office.
• View upcoming appointments and support history at any time.
• Submit new service requests, reducing administrative burden on staff.
Providers using self-service portals see a 23% reduction in calls for service changes and a 76% drop in short-notice cancellations.
📌 The Potential Returns for a Small – Medium Sized Provider
By centralising communication and automating workflows, a provider could achieve:
✅ $380K–$680K in annual cost savings & revenue recovery.
✅ A 27% increase in scheduling team efficiency, reducing reliance on manual tracking.
✅ A 20-30% reduction in inbound calls, freeing up staff time for complex needs.
✅ Stronger client satisfaction, as self-service tools provide independence and transparency.
✅ Scalable growth, enabling client onboarding without increasing costs.
📌 Final Impact: A leaner, more efficient provider operation, better positioned to navigate funding pressures, workforce challenges, and rising compliance demands.
🚀 Want to see how centralising communication & automating workflows could transform your operations? Discover how leading providers are reducing admin time, cutting costs, and improving client satisfaction.
